It's a bittersweet time for 2002 born junior hockey players - including Oakville's Nathan Ribau.
With the hockey season ending, this will mark the end of their junior hockey career as they will all graduate from this level of hockey.
This reality is no different for Ribau, who recently announced that he has committed to Queen’s University and will play for the Gaels in the 2023-24 U-Sports season.
Many factors went into Ribau’s decision to head down to Kingston and go to Queen’s.
The first of which is their hockey program.
"I started talking to their coach earlier on in the season and he sold me on their hockey program."
It’s not hard to be sold on Queen’s hockey program as the team only lost two games in the 2021-2022 season and in 2022-23 still had a respectable 12-14 record.
Number two, he wanted to go to a school that would help him advance in his studies.
Nathan was looking to join a Film and Media program and fortunately Queen’s offers that program and it will provide him with the chance to seek out some great opportunities in that field.
"I love being behind the camera," says Ribau. "Right now for work I’m pretty much doing it all by myself in terms of filming, editing, colour grading, lighting etc. I’ve been doing it for the past seven or eight years and I’m just excited to learn more about it."
In terms of Nathan's work, he has been shooting a lot of real estate videos for agents that are listing homes and has done promotional videos for YouTubers.
The final reason that Nathan chose to go to Queen’s was that his girlfriend also attends the university and he wanted to be closer to her.
Though Nathan’s junior career may be coming to an end, he had an extremely interesting and long tenure.
After Nathan finished playing with the Oakville Rangers where he played with great players like Nashville Predators prospect Luke Evangelista, he was drafted by the Sudbury Wolves of the OHL in 2018 but was unable to make the Wolves' roster in his rookie season.
So for the 2018-19 season, Nathan played for his hometown Oakville Blades. "That one was big for me," Ribau said when reminiscing on his time with the Blades.
"As a 16-year-old I was just trying to learn and gain experience from the older guys, I saw what it takes to be a winning team and I was fortunate enough to be a part of that."
He really was fortunate enough to be a part of that team, in 2018-19 the Blades won the OJHL championship and competed in the Centennial cup in Brooks, Alta.
The next season, Ribau was lucky enough to earn a spot on the Sudbury Wolves where he played 40 games before the season was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Due to the pandemic, Nathan lost a full season of hockey and did not play until the 2021-22 season when he was traded from Sudbury to Windsor.
Nathan and the Spitfires had an amazing season and went all the way to game seven of the OHL finals only to sadly lose to the Hamilton Bulldogs.
At the start of this year, Nathan was traded to the Niagara IceDogs and with the IceDogs already eliminated from playoff contention, Nathan only has a couple of weeks left in junior hockey until his time is over.
He now looks forward to his love of film and hopes to win a National Championship with the Queen’s Gaels next season.